Destruction!

So, I thought we got lucky when Owen took a nice, long nap this afternoon. It turns out, instead of napping he was doing this:

I guess it's time to take the mobile down.

I had to put the baby gate up in the living room for a minute so that I could get it put back together. It was hard to do with this staring at me through the gate:

Ok, one more photo and I'm done. Owen had prunes and pasta (weird combo, I know) for lunch today and this was the result:

Food is messy business around our house.

Evidence of the Growling Baby

I told you he was vicious.

The Millers have relocated!

We're finally moved into our new place (a house and not a tiny apartment, hooray)!

We still don't have internet/ cable for a few more days, so I can't post pictures yet, but they're coming.

Here's rundown of important stuff that went down during the weekend/ move:

*Owen hit his nose on the coffee table. Screaming ensued. He was over it in a matter of minutes, though, so I'm not too worried. I figure that as ornery as he is, a bonk on the face is small change compared to what he's going to do in the future. I better hope we wind up with good insurance.

*New house smells like vinegar. Yes, vinegar. If you know me, you know that it is, in fact, my favorite condiment, but I do not want my house to smell like it. We're renting, and when they cleaned it before we moved in they left bowls of vinegar all over the house. I have no idea why, but even after I poured them out the house still reeks of it. I suspect someone spilled it on the carpet. Time to rent a rug doctor.

*Rupp got stuck in the litter box. I bought him one with a lid since Owen is free-ranging now that we have more space and I don't want him to eat cat poop. Rupp made it in the door, did his business and then couldn't get out. He scratched on the sides until I rescued him. I'm still looking for a creative solution to this.

*Like I said, we don't have cable or internet so we've been burning through DVDs like crazy. I'm pretty sure we've exhausted every good movie we own. Even a few of the crappy ones. We've watched the likes of Toy Story 2&3, Secondhand Lions, The Strangers, 28 Days Later, Zoolander, Veggie Tales and the Rocky Horror Picture Show (and more). Luckily, we live 2 blocks from a Red Box now, so that's handy. And, yes, we are those people who have the TV on for background noise all the time. We haven't actually sat in front of the TV for all of these movies, so don't worry.

*Owen caught Rupp. After all of his attempts to chase him down throughout his lifetime he finally cornered him under and end table yesterday and caught him. Rupp is not amused and has since been spending his time sitting in the window where Owen can't reach.

I guess that sums things up nicely. We're loving the new place so far. We have TONS of space now and I even have a drier that dries things the FIRST time I run it. It's amazing.

More later!

I am a Pro at Procrastination

We're finally moving out of our tiny apartment this weekend!

I'm ridiculously excited about moving into an actual house, but my procrastination has come out in full force this week.

How much have I packed, you ask? Oh, 6 boxes or so. Pretty much just the contents of a bookshelf, the things from Owen's changing table, the picture frames from the walls and our toiletry stockpile. That just leaves... oh... pretty much everything.

Owen has been 'helping' me pack today. (By 'helping' I mean 'growling at me from the play pen.') He accompanied me to Wal-Mart this morning to buy a new litter box with a cover (since I'm positive that if we didn't get one with a cover that my child would try to eat cat poop).

We wandered around the store for a while (again, more procrastination) and came out of there with a storage bench for his toys, a walker, a toy hammer and three movies from the $5 bin.

What's missing from that list? The flipping litter box. I'm such a dunce. I figure I'll wind up making a million trips to the store tomorrow during the actual moving, though, so I can just pick one up then.

Also, we apparently hit Wal-Mart right at the peak 'old lady time,' because I can't tell you how many old women stopped us to talk to Owen and tell me how 'pretty' he is. Did I mind? Not even a little.

I'm a fan of anyone who tells me my kid is cute. I think we'll be going to Wal-Mart at 8am more often. ;-)

When we got home, Owen was pooped and pretty much immediately fell asleep. This gave me more time to pack.

I thought, "I'll just watch this weeks Survivor online while I pack the living room."

Well, that turned into me sitting on the couch, totally engrossed in Survivor (which is off to an awesome start this season, by the way). I seriously need a procrastination intervention.


Ok, I should actually go pack some more. Maybe.

Did that just happen?

Holy crap.

Owen stood up today. I mean, he's been pulling himself up for a while, but this was a huge shock.

We were sitting in the living room this afternoon before I went to work and Owen was holding onto the coffee table and cruising around it.

As usual, he started pushing everything he could reach off of the table. He got his hands on the thermometer that was sitting on the edge of the table, and Ross grabbed it away from him.

Owen looked up at him like, "Seriously, Dad?" and let go of the table to try and get it back.

He didn't fall. He just stood there, reaching for the thermometer for a few seconds before he gently put his hands back on the table. Then he did it again.

I was shocked at how stable he was. It was no big deal to him, but we flipped out. Even my normally stoic husband was yelling, "Did you see that? Did he just do that?"

My little nugget is growing up way too fast.

Hiatus from the Evil Baby Era

Today the evil streak seems to have ended (for now).

This morning was my husband's day to get up with Owen, so I got to sleep in a little. I was woken up by a super-giggly baby in bed with me. (Ross put him there. Don't worry, he's not climbing up there by himself yet.)

When nap time rolled around, he went down with no problems (2 minutes of fussing, max), then slept for an hour and a half.

Great start to the day? Absolutely.

It's also pretty incredible to see how much more mobile Owen gets each day. It's no big deal for him to pull himself to standing and cruise around the furniture anymore. He doesn't think twice about crawling. Today he even stood up on the couch without holding onto anything. Of course, he fell over after a second because the couch is, well, a couch, but it was crazy.

I just didn't expect for all of this to be happening at 8 months old. I thought I had a long time before I would have to worry about baby-proofing and whatnot. I was wrong.

Rupp (the cat) is not happy about Owen's new-found mobility. When we put Owen on the floor to let him roam, Rupp gives us this look like, "Are you really just letting that thing free-range now?" His fears are well-founded, however, because any time Owen actually gets his hand on him fur flies.

We're working hard to teach Owen how to gently pet the cat, but so far he only has an interest in pulling out his fur, screeching at him then drooling on his head. This will be a process, to say the least.

One aspect of the evilness stuck around today: Growling.

Yes, my child growls. It's more hilarious than terrifying, though. Plus, when you growl at him, he growls back. It's one of our favorite games at the moment.

To wrap this up, here's a pic of my little 'stud muffin.' Cutest baby ever? The answer is yes.

This Can't be Good...

I'm pretty sure my child is possessed. Owen has been on an evil streak the last couple of days and I'm not sure where it came from. We'll blame it on teething, I guess.

Let me tell you about yesterday.

Owen was incredibly clingy yesterday. That's really no big deal, though, and I know it had a lot to do with teething. After holding him for hours with him yanking on my hair and grabbing my lips I finally just needed a break, so I stuck him in the playpen. He freaked. We're talking screaming, fake coughing... the whole nine yards. I was desperate, so I handed him the remote.

That calmed him down almost immediately and gave me a few minutes to just sit on the couch without being assaulted by my giant 8-month-old.

This calm lasted for about 5 minutes before he chucked the remote over the side of the playpen. The kid got some distance on it, too.

Resume freaking out.

I picked him up and decided he probably needed a diaper change. Well, we did that and he seemed like he had calmed back down. I figured that was what his problem was, so I stuck him back in the playpen so I could run to the bathroom.

When I came back, he was standing in the playpen smiling at me. Awesome. I won!

When I got a little bit closer to him, I saw it... Bare baby butt.

He took his diaper off.

I guess I should be glad that it was a clean one at least, but I do not think this new trick is entertaining. He, on the other hand, was incredibly proud of himself.

Fast-forward to my husband getting home. I told him all about the screaming... and the remote... and the diaper. He thought it was funny.

While he was busy laughing, he leaned down to give Owen a kiss and Owen conked him in the head with the toy he was holding. "See," I said, "he's evil."

Meet Us...

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

My name is Brittney (hi!) and this blog will follow the adventures of our young, quirky family. I hope to keep up with this well enough to be able to share it with our son Owen (the namesake of the blog, obviously) someday and give him a glimpse of what our day-to-day life was like 'way back when.'

I've started blogs before and have just ended up uninspired to keep up with them. I figured it was time I wrote about something that does inspire me: My family. 

This is kind of a bare-bones intro post, but I don't want to just tell you about us. I want to show you.

This is us:

Photo by the fabulous Dianne of Dianne Lisette Photography.

I hope you enjoy!

-Britt